Transform Your Space: A Comprehensive Vintage Home Decor Guide

This comprehensive vintage home decor guide will help you learn all about vintage home decor. You will not only learn what vintage decor is, but also how to beautifully transform your space with it!

Hello friends! Today I want to share a vintage home decor guide with you. I really hope this guide can show you how you can truly transform your space with beautiful vintage items!

This isn’t a new topic at all for me; I have always incorporated vintage and antique decor throughout our home. From beautiful wall art, rugs, vintage furniture pieces, kitchenware and more – it always adds so much character to a space.

Vintage and antique treasures make your home unique to you. There are so many home trends out there, and they will constantly change from year to year; however, finding true, timeless vintage pieces that you love can bring a room together, and help to set your home apart from the trends.

In this guide, I will address everything I have learned about vintage style – from what is considered vintage, to how to bring it into your own home. I am not an interior designer, but these are the design elements I have learned through trial and error in my own home. Vintage charm truly makes a difference.

What is considered vintage in home decor?

When it comes to antique and vintage decor, there are quite a few opinions of what classifies something under each category. According to Google, vintage is anything older than 20 years, and antique is anything over 100 years old.

Sometimes it is hard when you are shopping to know how old a piece is, especially at thrift stores, flea markets, Facebook Marketplace, and garage sales which are all my favorite spots to for vintage shopping.

Sometimes, when I purchase or see a vintage find that I really love, I try to look it up on Google, or ebay to see I can find out the exact time period or era it is from. Other times, if I absolutely love the object, I will just purchase it anyways. There are so many beautiful pieces out there that can quickly become the focal point of a room and really bring a space together.

What are common vintage home decor items to look for?

Whenever I am shopping, I am always on the lookout for vintage decor pieces. Not only are they super unique, they bring so much character into your home. There are several items that are common to look for that you can easily add to your space.

Vintage furniture pieces such as coffee tables, sofas, chairs, and larger storage solutions like chests, corner cabinets, hutches, and side tables are all excellent items to be on the look for when shopping. These larger pieces can easily become a statement piece in a living room or dining room.

You can always refinish pieces as well, so don’t let it’s current condition turn you away. I have so many blog posts on DIY finishes to beautiful pieces and I have loved the outcome almost every time. The corner cabinet in my dining room and the hutch in my laundry room are two of my favorite pieces I have redone.

Other statement pieces you can look for to bring warmth into your space are light fixtures, shelves, artwork, and vintage rugs. With rugs, just be careful – sometimes they can hold the scent of where they came from, but a good vinegar wash and sunshine may do the trick if it’s a rug you really love.

Smaller vintage accessories to shop for would be pillows, linens, picture frames, vases, blankets, lamps, stoneware, kitchenware and baskets. These can be used throughout your space in addition to the larger statement pieces. Vintage decor pieces also can help a modern or new home look less modern as well.

When shopping for any of these categories, just keep your style in mind. Since vintage means anything over 20 years old, that creates quite a wide timespan of different types of decor to choose from. I recommend looking to Pinterest, or at home decor accounts on social media to see what style you are really drawn to.

If you don’t know the style you are trying to achieve, sometimes you will end up with too many items, or mismatched items from time periods that don’t work well together. For example, decor from the 1970’s will be vastly different than decor from the 1940’s. Knowing ahead of time what to look for will really help.

Keep your color palette in mind as well before visiting thrift shops or wherever you are shopping. Do you need a pop of color in your space? Or are you looking for something neutral?

Besides the places I listed above, I also love to shop on Etsy for vintage pieces. There you can find original or replicas to help transform your space. I love purchasing accessories there like pillow covers, and other vintage textiles.

How to decorate with vintage decor:

Once you have purchased the vintage decor pieces you love it is time to incorporate them into your home to completely transform your space. I personally love to try several different options and “play” with my decor to find the perfect fit for the items I am working with.

Sometimes you will know exactly where you want to put something right away; for example, chandeliers will almost always hang from an entryway or dining room ceiling. Or maybe you find pretty accent towels or a shower curtain that will of course go in a bathroom.

Other larger pieces can be challenging though, I originally placed the hutch I referenced above in our dining room, and so many of you loved it there. It just never felt “right” to me though, and I ended up placing it in our laundry room and it was the perfect fit.

Smaller vintage accessories can be moved from room to room too. Think of what your space needs, does it need more masculine touches like plaids or more feminine touches like floral prints? You can look through your vintage inventory from shopping and play around with different fabrics or textures depending on what the room needs.

In conclusion vintage decor is the perfect addition to transform any space. Whether the item is just vintage or an actual antique, it will instantly add character, depth and warmth to any room which really makes a home cozy and inviting. I hope this vintage home decor guide really helped you as you look for your own decor to add into your space. If you have any questions, let me know in the comments!

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